by Rumer Godden
In the years since Griselda died, twenty-two years ago, there has hardly been a blank hour for Selina; though she still grieves for Griselda, free of her chain of jealousy, she has been able to organize her life so that it has passed smoothly and efficiently and busily; so busily that she has hardly had time to know that it has passed; it has gone almost unfelt. She has kept house for the Eye since she was sixteen with great authority and she is far more efficient than Griselda, though the house is strangely not as comfortable. The Eye shuts himself away in the study. Pelham, and Rollo when he is home on leave, are almost always out.
Beyond the table Mrs Proutie is waiting. She is still the cook. Most of the servants in the house are annuals, a few are perennials: Mrs Sampson, Mrs Crabbe, Agnes, Athay, Slater, Proutie and Mrs Proutie are the perennials. Mrs Proutie is a formidable woman with a mighty bust and her hair is dressed as high as Selina’s own and caught up with combs. She wears a print dress, pink, and an immense rustling starched apron. She smells always of flour and cabbage and a little of the comfortable smell of singed linen, from the warmth of that apron as it bends over the fire, and a little of sweat. She cannot altogether imbue Griselda with awe, Griselda has a way of escaping, but she stands no nonsense from Selina.
‘You understand about the soubise, don’t you Mrs Proutie?’ says Selina.
‘I should ’ope so,’ says Mrs Proutie. They are discussing Selina’s birthday dinner. ‘And then there will be a nice saddle of mutting to follow. You can leave that to me. And we will end with those nice butting mushrooms in cream on toast with the little bacon rolls.’
There is perpetually, in the house, a plethora of food. The butcher, the baker, the fishmonger, the poulterer, the grocer and the greengrocer all call for orders and the orders are substantial, especially for the butcher.
Now in the meat cage in the larder were only the crops, the ration for Proutie and Rolls, for half a week. It looked strangely empty. It is accustomed to hold, in Mrs Proutie’s time, for one day, perhaps a dozen sausages on a plate; a leg of mutton; four pounds of fillet of steak and a chicken with its head and feet and liver tidily arranged beside it. There is also a cut ham, and a side of bacon. Below on a stone slab under the north window are perhaps a few pounds of turbot or fillets of sole; four cod steaks for the kitchen; some kippers for breakfast; a few dozen whiskery shrimps in a bowl; and the cats’ fish in a saucer. There are other bowls: a bowl of country eggs sent specially by carrier; butter, with the wooden shaping slats beside it; fruit; stewed fruit cooling; cream; milk in bowls that are glazed brown outside and cream-glazed in. There is a Stilton covered in a corner, and the remains of an open apricot tart and half a custard. There is a great crock for bread, and a vegetable rack, and lemons, and parsley in a jug and a bouquet of herbs and, hanging from the ceiling, strings of onions. Across the passage is the store-room to which Griselda is always losing the key; from its closed door a good smell comes out of coffee and brown sugar and vinegar. It has shelves of tins and jars and packets. A stair leads down to the cellar but Griselda does not have the key of that: Athay has it, and Slater, and of course Mrs Proutie; the Eye has a commendable little store of wine.
Everyone in the house has a favourite dish and Mrs Proutie in however bad a temper always remembers them on birthdays. For the Eye it never changes: it is always roast beef and Yorkshire pudding but it has to be cooked on a spit as only Mrs Proutie can cook it; for Pelham it is jugged hare and sometimes mushrooms; for Roly pink meringues with raspberry jam inside; for Selina it may be some newfangled thing that she has set her heart on – if Mrs Proutie allows it. She does not like newfangled things.
‘Now what about the sweet?’ she says and fixes her eye on Selina. Selina indomitably fixes her eye on Mrs Proutie.
‘I want something rather special,’ begins Selina and the battle is on.
‘If it is to be those jelly nests in angelica seaweed, I am not making them, Miss Lena, nor a fool of meself on a dinner party night.’
‘But—’
‘What about a trifle?’ Mrs Proutie mows her down.
‘We always have a trifle.’
‘An’ why? You ast for something special and special you know very well that trifle is Miss Lena. It is me grandmother’s grandmother’s recipe and you don’t get a trifle like it in any other ’ouse that I do know. People know a good thing when they taste it, make no mistake about that. They don’t like your narsty foreign made-up messes.’
‘Very well then,’ says Selina. ‘Trifle.’
‘Not if you say it like that Miss Lena, birthday or no birthday.’
‘Oh, Mrs Proutie. I didn’t mean—’ says Selina hastily. She knows what will happen if Mrs Proutie should be in a temper that night.
‘Miss Lena I have known you since the day you was born and I know what is in your mind. The recipe is me grandmother’s grandmother’s and I shall ’and it on, but I am not making it anywhere where it isn’t appreciatit and so I tell you flat, no matter ’ow old you are.’
Selina has to spend ten of her precious minutes to placate her. ‘I am sure everything will be delightful,’ she says silkily, peeping at her watch that is pinned on her bodice. She has arranged that, while she talks to Mrs Proutie, the Parish worker who is coming to see her should wait ready in the dining-room. She has a few minutes to see her in before she need start for the committee meeting at ten o’clock. ‘Do you get good news of little Harry?’ she asks peeping at the watch.
Little Harry is Proutie at the convent orphanage over the way, but Mrs Proutie has something more to say.
‘I shall be out for lunch and tea,’ says Selina. ‘Professor Freyburg is coming at five; he may want tea. I shall see him when I come in. I think that is all, Mrs Proutie.’ But Mrs Proutie has something to say.
‘Yes?’ says Selina reluctantly.
‘Miss Lena, it is not my affair but ’aven’t you any orders for Miss Lark?’
‘For Lark?’
‘Yes Miss Lena. I must say the child doesn’t look cared for at all. Agnes ’asn’t time to see her, besides it isn’t reely ’er work. She did ought to ’ave a governess or be sent to school.’
‘Father won’t send her to school.’
‘Well I don’t know about that,’ says Mrs Proutie, ‘but I do know that she is in your charge and the way she looks doesn’t reflect no credit on you Miss Lena. She doesn’t look like a lady’s child at all.’
She isn’t a lady’s child, Selina almost said, but she checked it just in time. ‘Send for her then,’ she said. ‘But I have to see Miss Dunn.’
Lark appears. She is looking pale and her hair is unkempt and her dress is stained and rubbed at the elbows. She certainly does not reflect, like the rest of the house, Selina’s efficient shining care. ‘Everythings flourish under your touch.’ That was what that Baron, that friend of the Eye’s, had said. It was particularly gratifying coming from a Baron. ‘Everythings’! Everything except humans. Where did that whisper come from? She is suddenly put in mind of scenes with Roly; with Rollo; of the Eye’s absence in the study; and now Lark, pale and shabby, stands silently, fearfully, in front of the desk. Like her great-niece Grizel, Selina is a very positive person, firm and decided, and does not admit of doubts in her mind. Then how did this doubt come in? It is not a doubt. It is an omission. There is, is there, something lacking in Selina? Unlike her great-niece she never finds it out.
She turns to Lark: on Lark.
‘You haven’t brushed your hair.’
‘No,’ Lark agrees politely.
‘Why not? You have a hairbrush.’ She does not wait for an answer. ‘Put on a clean dress. I won’t have you going about like this.’
‘I haven’t a clean dress. This is my winter one. The other is too thin.’
‘You can put on a jacket. What are you going to do to-day?’
‘What?’ asks Lark in alarm.
‘Surely you must know what you have to do?’
‘Oh,’ says Lark in relief. ‘Nothing.’
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br /> ‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
The content in Lark’s voice arrests Selina. ‘Do you like to have nothing to do the whole day?’
‘I do things. I read – and I go out in the garden.’
‘But nothing organized?’ says Selina. ‘You must have lessons. Why, you are quite old. You must have your day filled up.’
‘Then what time would I have for – for—’
‘For what?’
‘For myself.’
‘For yourself? What an odd idea! Don’t you want to get on, to learn lessons? Isn’t there anything you want to learn?’ Selina is interested in spite of herself.
‘I used to have music.’ Lark does not often mention to Selina what she used or used not to have. ‘I should like to learn music again.’
‘Music lessons are expensive.’
‘You have plenty of money.’
Selina looks across the desk at Lark. She sees that Lark is getting tall and slim; she sees the black hair complained about lying like a web on Lark’s shoulders and she sees suddenly that the pale serene small face has contours that are unexpectedly beautiful; Lark is looking down and her eyelashes are long and black and curling, but when she makes her answers she lifts her eyes and then there is a flash of brilliant violet blue. Selina sees all at once, that morning, that moment, that Lark is an unusually beautiful child and she is as outraged as if a cuckoo had put an egg in her nest. She says with a surge of extraordinary unkindness: ‘You don’t understand your position, Lark. You are a penniless orphan. You are very lucky to have been given anything at all. You might have been left to beg in the streets. Your father and mother were paupers.’
‘They were not. They were singers.’
‘They didn’t leave you a penny. You might have starved but for Father. You might have had to be in an orphanage, like the convent, like little Harry Proutie.’
‘He seems to be quite a happy child,’ says Lark judiciously.
‘How dare you!’ cries Selina. ‘He is not nearly as happy and as lucky as you ought to be without asking for expensive lessons.’
‘I didn’t ask,’ says Lark. ‘You asked me. I will ask the Eye,’ she says with sudden spirit.
‘You will call him Mr Dane.’ Lark looks back steadily and Selina cries: ‘He spoils you. That is the trouble. He gives in to you.’
‘He forgets all about me,’ says Lark in a low voice.
Slater comes in. ‘Miss Dunn is here.’
‘Ask her to come in,’ says Selina. ‘Lark, I haven’t time to go into all this now, but there will have to be an alteration in your manners and behaviour. Ask Agnes to brush your hair and I shall see she takes you for a walk. When you come in, you can write me an essay on – on—’ says Selina looking round. She catches sight of a mission postcard on her desk. ‘On “Africa. I should like to visit it and why.”’
‘But I shouldn’t like to visit Africa,’ says Lark politely, and she says hastily, ‘May I write one on Italy? It says in the book “There was a smell of warm apricots and I looked out of the catacomb, through the grating, and there were thousands of freesias that smelt like apricots in the hot sun.” I shall visit Italy when I am grown up.’
‘You will have to earn your living when you are grown up. You won’t have time to visit anywhere,’ says Selina crushingly.
‘No, I shall marry,’ says Lark.
Slater opens the door and Miss Dunn comes in. She is an elderly single woman who knew Griselda; Selina calls her an old maid and, because she is poor and insignificant, she allows her to come out early on any Parish errand. To-day she has come about the Parish magazine: she has the proofs in her bag.
‘Good morning Selina. Good morning Lark dear child.’ Selina already has a peremptory hand out for the proofs but Miss Dunn goes on. ‘What a beautiful beautiful day.’
Selina does not answer. She has taken the proofs.
‘It is all blue and sun,’ says Lark.
‘And what are you going to do in it?’ asks Miss Dunn.
‘I shall be in the garden,’ says Lark.
‘Yes, you should, dear child. You should go out early on a morning like this. Dear me, I could smell the lime-flowers as I came along.’
‘What is it you wanted me to see?’ asks Selina. ‘I have a meeting at ten.’
‘They are not quite right,’ says Miss Dunn as she turns over the proofs and her beatific expression fades and her face looks like a worried wrinkled walnut. ‘There is a little matter—’ In her shabby cotton mended glove she turns the pages. ‘Oh dear! Now I have dropped it. I had better take off my glove.’
‘What number is it?’ says Selina impatiently.
‘Wait. Now. There it is.’ She has taken off her glove. Really, what a comedy of a glove – and she peers round Selina’s arm. ‘There, dear, do you see? If Hitchcock’s advertisement goes under Gryce’s he will be offended but Gryce gave twenty pounds to the Organ Fund. Do you see how difficult it is?’
‘It isn’t difficult,’ says Selina taking a pencil. ‘Put it like this, and this.’ The pencil makes smooth lines and arrows on the paper. ‘That paragraph moved up here. Now the two advertisements are parallel and neither of them can grumble. It is quite simple.’
‘Yes,’ says Miss Dunn, ‘now I see you do it. You are a clever girl, Selina,’ she says thoughtfully as Selina briskly rolls up the proofs and gives them back to her. ‘What a pity it is,’ says Miss Dunn, ‘that you can’t do something big.’
‘Big?’ asks Selina in surprise.
‘Yes. You are so capable,’ says Miss Dunn. ‘You have such a good brain. All this is littleness—’ And with the proofs in her hands that are again in those shameful gloves she makes a gesture. ‘Doesn’t it chafe you?’ cries Miss Dunn.
‘Not in the least,’ says Selina coldly.
‘Treading round. Treading round. No, not even as impressive as treading: trotting round and round.’
There is a surprised silence. Selina stares at the dowdy comic old woman. But this can be nothing to do with me. Not with me, she cries silently.
‘And in the end what is there to show for it,’ says Miss Dunn, ‘when you are old and perhaps left alone? You haven’t been anywhere, done anything, seen anything and there is no time left and you have nothing to remember. You are young Selina but not so young; one day before you notice it, you will be old. I am old. I have often wanted – to speak to you. Oh my dear, why don’t you do something before it is too late?’
Lark’s eyes, wide with interest, go from one face to the other.
‘But – I am always doing things,’ cries Selina and her voice sounds suddenly genuine, not as it usually sounds with acquaintances and friends. ‘What do you mean?’ she says indignantly.
‘That is what I mean,’ says Miss Dunn sadly. ‘You are always busy doing nothing at all. Puffs of empty wind—’ says Miss Dunn sadly.
Selina is tempted to laugh, the old woman is so strange and so comic, but she is a little angry. ‘I am sorry,’ she says stiffly, ‘but I shall be late, Miss Dunn. I must go.’
Miss Dunn pays no attention. ‘That was why I was always glad to see your dear mother,’ she said. ‘She knew.’
‘Mother?’
‘Yes. She could never go far from this house but her thoughts were large. She knew this hemmed – this cramped – she at least wanted—’ She breaks off under Selina’s angry jealous stare, but she is quite certain of what she means. ‘I loved your mother,’ she says defiantly. ‘She was rewarded. She was loved.’
In silence she puts the proofs into her big ridiculous bag with its loops across her arm; she bends her head so that the brim of her dark-grey bonnet – at least twenty years old, thinks Selina angrily – hides her face, but they know she is wiping her eyes. She blows her nose. For a moment longer the bonnet remains bent, then she raises her head. Though her cheeks are patchy and her eyes and her nose are red, her voice is clear as she says, ‘I didn’t intend – when I came in – but you see Selina, I know.�
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She goes and the room is still silent and then Lark in her deep interest asks a question. ‘Is it so important to be loved?’ asks Lark.
Proutie turned away from the dressing-room door. He was bewildered and then across the landing he saw Rolls asleep in the armchair.
‘Mr Rolls! Have you been there all night? Oh, Mr Rolls! Sir! That isn’t good for you. You haven’t been to bed at all. That isn’t right.’
Rolls opened his eyes. They were heavy but they had a look of peace, of satisfaction until they saw Proutie standing with the tray.
‘Oh, Mr Rolls!’
‘What d’you want?’ growled Rolls.
‘You haven’t been to bed, not all night.’
‘What the deuce is that to do with you? Go away. I don’t want to be disturbed.’
‘But it isn’t good for you.’
‘Good God, my God!’ said Rolls. ‘Can’t I do what I like?’
‘Not at your time of life, sir, not without paying for it.’
‘It is my life,’ Rolls glared. ‘At last it is my life, and I shall do in it exactly as I choose, d’you hear?’
‘At least have your tea,’ said Proutie.
‘Blast you Proutie,’ said Rolls but he took the tray. ‘Very well. Now go away. Go away and keep away, d’you hear?’
Proutie smiled stiffly and went downstairs. Rolls sank back in the chair. He forgot the tea.